I work as a screenwriter for film & TV. In a former life I was a media specialist & campaign ad writer. Follow me on Twitter @MarkHughesFilms; add me on Google+; and read my question and answers about film, comics, and more on Quora.

Review: 'The Dark Knight Rises' Delivers Perfect End To Batman Legend

Batman has been part of my life since my earliest childhood memories. Comics were how I learned to read, especially Batman comics I eagerly consumed from my older brothers. Batman cartoons were part of my morning when I first started school, and the Batman live-action TV show was waiting for me when I rushed home from school. Comics were an escape from hardships and fear in my life, and Batman was the one that spoke to me most of all. The pain, fear, and uncertainty in Batman’s childhood were things that eventually made him stronger, he overcame them, and that gave me a feeling of hope sometimes when it might otherwise be hard for a little kid to have much sense of hope during difficult times.

As I grew older, Batman was the character I always came back to and could count on to represent something more than just simple stories about a man in a cape, and it was time and again Batman stories that seemed to herald a new stage in comic book storytelling. Then came superheroes on film, and Batman once more showed up to set a new course for the genre. Eventually, of course, the Batman films sank into a camp that brought about the downfall of the Batman franchise, and for years my favorite hero was silent and sorely missed.

Christopher Nolan changed everything when his Batman Begins brought to life the Batman I’d always dreamed of — no, actually, that’s not entirely correct, because the truth is that the Batman films I dreamed of were nowhere close to as good as what Nolan created. But what he created was the Batman I had been waiting for all my life, even though I didn’t know precisely what it was I was waiting for. Batman Begins made me feel, “This is Batman, this is what Batman was always meant to be, what he has for 65 years been journeying toward, and now he’s made whole at last.” So it was a shock when, in 2008, magic happened and Batman got even better on film. The superhero in cinema was redefined, the simple notion of “comic book genre” rendered obsolete, by The Dark Knight. It was a crime thriller, a police and gangster drama set in a world we could recognize as very close to our own, and in which the main character happened to wear a Batman costume. After seeing it, I had the feeling that “my” Batman, the one I’d been waiting for, was now fully formed, and I admit I didn’t know if it would be possible for any future Batman films to live up to what The Dark Knight delivered.

So it is that I walked into the theater to see The Dark Knight Rises with very mixed emotions. This was the end of an era, the final act in the story of “my” Batman. The character whom I’d known and loved as a child, who saved me on many occasions from sadness and let my imagination grow to escape the confines of a small world, had come to be embodied fully in this live-action incarnation that was everything I could hope for in a Batman film series… but now it was all going to be over in less than three hours’ time. I’d never again experience the anticipation of this Batman returning, of walking into a theater with this excitement for a new Nolan Batman movie. Something that had been with me as long as I could remember had come to life in front of my eyes as an adult, and now it was going to go away forever. As much as I was excited and ready to see this film, then, I was also a little sad and overwhelmed by the mixed feelings involved.

I also had some fear that it might just be impossible for any Batman film to have the same impact as The Dark Knight, including but not limited to the obviously amazing and performance delivered by the late Heath Ledger. He was mesmerizing, he was surprising and beautiful, he was perfect. It’s a performance that helped define The Dark Knight, and it came to represent just how transcendent the film and the franchise had become. Without that — no, in the shadow of that — could any sequel hope to compare? Might it try too hard, push too far, and come up short?

The Dark KnightRisesdoes try hard, it does push far, but it doesn’t come up short. Oh, no, it is not content to merely be a worthy sequel, nor is it even content to be just a fitting third chapter in a great trilogy. It is not, I tell you, even content to dare to match the quality and brilliance of The Dark Knight. This newest film tries harder, pushes farther, and comes up with the finest Batman film of all time, the greatest superhero or comic book adaptation of all time, and the best film of the year.

Let me be clear that when I say this is the greatest superhero or comic book adaptation of all time, I put no qualifiers on that. Be it “genre-busting” or “pure superhero” or any way you wish to define it, The Dark Knight Rises is the greatest ever produced about a comic book character. And however much we’ve all talked about Nolan’s previous bat-films being “transcendent,” that word gains an entirely new weight in application when we talk about the final film in the trilogy.

Take the best depictions and narrative stylings and mythic fantasy from Batman Begins, mix them with the best thematic elements and dramatic depictions cloaked in illusionary realism from The Dark Knight, then add the French Revolution plus urban warfare and the poetic epic conclusion of grand legend, and you get just the beginning of an understanding of what The Dark Knight Rises feels like in a bare-bones description. It was at once larger than life and explicitly right down in the nuances of moments of life, a simultaneous sense of grandeur and of peering into the frailty and humanity of each character.

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Bale an Oscar nomination? let’s not exaggerate..he was amazing in ”The Fighter” and he deserved two Oscars for that..nothing special in TKDR at all..for me the most impressive acting was Anne as Catwoman and of course Michael Caine…he was amazing..and remember there is no Batman without The Joker:) he will always be the first Batman nemesis no matter who played him over the years:)

Mark – As quoted by you, I myself felt ”physically drained” after reading your frank and emotional review! It eloquently represents all the emotions of Bat fans, who have grown up with the super hero to see it dwindle and then be resurrected again by Nolan! The series may have ended but the Bat Logo will always shine brightly in our collective conscience!